The Peloponnisos International Doc Film Festival's purpose has always been to introduce the audience of Peloponnese some very special films from all over the world. This year according to the difficult circumstances it was decided that there will be a hybrid version of the festival with an ONLINE release in February and a live premiere in May. In this situation we asked volunteers and festival staff to interview the directors of the ONLINE program to bring them closer with the audience even if they couldn't have met in the theaters. Behind the scenes information, personal stories and more in depth approach to the films are available through these interviews. The interviews of the films included in the "Claiming Freedom" tribute have been conducted by the students of Theater Studies of University of Peloponnese, as one part of our collaboration with the University.
The interviews of the directors were conducted by: Manos Kalafatelis, Dina Sotaki, Stella Papakonstantinou, Kostas Metsos, Giannis Koutresis, Ioannis Manoloudis, Andrianna Giannakopoulou, Daphne Alihatzoti, Ornela Koutrolli, Ilektra Katsimiha, Valia Orfanidou, Antonia Pternea and Maria Siamatra, Maria Nikolakopoulou, Giorgos Geranakis, Aggelos Kourepis, Maria Galani, Kalliopi Kalpodimou, Katerina Mefsout from Theater Studies faculty of University of Peloponnese team.
Michal Bielawski "The Wind. A Documentary Thriller"
Born in Warsaw, Bielawski graduated in Interdepartmental Studies in Humanities at the University of Warsaw. Since 2005 he has been working in cooperation with TVP Kultura channel. For the TV program “Jedna scena” (2011)– interviews with famous polish filmmakers, he was nominated for the prize of Polish Film Institute and Grand Press. The “Mundial: The Highest Stakes” is his debut as a director.
You can check out the interview by Antonia Pternea with Michal here.
Sergio Gregori Marugan "Unblock Cuba"
Sergio Gregori Marugán (18/08/1997) is a Spanish journalist and audiovisual producer. Founder and director of the online television Furor TV and the audiovisual production company Furor Producciones SL. In 2017 he became an academician in the Spanish Academy of Sciences and Arts of Television. He is also the director of the documentary Unblock Cuba, his opera prima.
You can check out the short statement of Sergio Gregori in correspondence with the "Claiming Freedom" comittee here.
Manuele Mandolesi "Vulnerable Beauty"
Manuele Mandolesi after finishing his degree in Communication studies he moved to Milan to attend a Master in "Digital Film and Television". In Rome, he approached the field of documentary films working on his first thematic documentary "Il Cammino di Santiago" (Way of St. James). Later he specialized in narrative documentary.
Thanks to his on-field experience, the director has been able to tell stories of conflicts and crisis, developing a reportage/in depth analysis approach in dealing with current events of political and social interest. As documentary Filmmaker he worked for the main Italian television channels. During the refugee crisis in Lampedusa he shooted the docu-movie “We are Lampedusa" and "Free Speech". In 2014, he spent several months on a ship of the Italian Navy to show the life of the first Italian woman Captain involved in the “Mare Nostrum” operation launched by the Italian Government to prevent refugee drowning off the coast of the Island of Sicily (Award winner Premio Flaiano). In 2017 he won Walles Int. Documentary Festival with his short doc "Far East''. Then he started to shoot two documentaries about the 2016 earthquake in Italy: "Vulnerable Beauty" and "This is our homeland". Now he is working for a documentary-series for a TV channel and he is writing a new documentary and a fiction film.
You can check out the interview by Ioannis Manoloudis with Manuele here.
Don't forget to check out the films in today's program 12/2 from 00:00 till 23:59 GR Time in this link.